Update on Bigotry by the Bay

Yesterday's post certainly stirred up quite a lot of discussion (208 comments and counting!). Some commenters questioned whether I had the right to doubt Mr. Schwach's version of the events he described in his piece. To those who were so hesitant to question Mr. Schwach's credibility - even after seeing all of the inconsistencies I pointed out - check this out. Mayer Fertig of The Jewish Star has done a bit of reporting on the matter, and has come up with some interesting findings:

Schwach began his commentary with the by-now-trite observation that “more people have died in the name of religion than anything else in history.”

He then recounted several episodes to which he was an eyewitness, and which he used to bolster his underlying point — that the desire of Orthodox Jews to live largely separate from the greater community is “bad for Democracy,” as he put it in a telephone conversation with The Jewish Star on Monday afternoon.

On an early morning visit to the Borders book store on Central Ave “several months ago,” the retired public school teacher wrote, he encountered several Nassau County police vehicles parked in front. Inside, a former student of his, a clerk in the store, “told me that they found a note on the door that warned them that the store would be destroyed by fire if they continued to open on Saturdays.”

We take him at his word that this is what he was told. For the record though, Brad Ruter, the manager of Borders on Central Ave for the last 30 years, told The Jewish Star on Monday that he had no knowledge of such a threat, or any like it. A Merrick resident, Ruter said he’s watched the neighborhood change, but that business has remained steady throughout.

Ah. So the manager of the store for the past 30 years knows nothing of the supposed arson threat. Fascinating. He also has seen no discernible difference in business since the demographic shift in the Five Towns took place. To spell it out, even though Orthodox residents now make up a larger percentage of the community (Orthodox shoppers ostensibly being the ones Mr. Schwach claims are unhappy that the book store is open on Saturdays), business has nevertheless remained steady at the store. Doesn't seem to me like a community that is hell-bent on forcing a store to close because it does not conform to said community's religious beliefs.

There's more:

A few days later, Schwach wrote, he and his wife went into Carvel a few doors down where he witnessed, “an Orthodox man arguing with the Asian owner of the store, telling him that he needed a certificate from the local Orthodox Rabbi if he wanted to stay in business. The owner pointed to a framed document on the wall and told the man he already had a Kosher Certificate. The man told him that it wasn’t good enough and that if he didn’t pay for one from the local rabbi, nobody from the community would ever again come into his store.”

Three weeks later, Schwach wrote, “the store was closed. In my mind, that was worthy of the Mafia and the shakedown antics of the Chinatown gangs.”
By phone Schwach first insisted that he saw what he saw and it was patently obvious to him that the conversation he witnessed directly led to the store’s closing.

A few points: First, Schwach’s timeline is way off, which he conceded. Since the Carvel has been closed for at least a year, the incident he described couldn’t have happened a few days after the Borders threat, which he said took place “a few months ago.” He said both incidents could have occurred as long as two years ago.
Rabbi Yosef Eisen, Rabbinic Administrator of the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway, told The Jewish Star the Vaad doesn’t employ sales people. “We have a firm policy,” he said. “We do not solicit hashgachas. People call the office and ask to make an appointment.” He called the Vaad’s marketing effort, such as it is, “a one-way street. Proprietors contact us and we service people interested in the Vaad hashgacha.”

Did Schwach witness someone discussing with the Carvel store owner the relative value of the local Vaad hashgacha versus the Kof-K, which provides a blanket hechsher to Carvel stores? We have no reason to call him a liar. He probably did see someone urging Carvel to “upgrade.” Nor would we have trouble believing that this person was coming on a too strongly. But to suggest that this isolated incident is somehow connected to the shutdown of the store is ludicrous. Schwach later conceded that he was interpreting the episode in the worst possible light, rather than offering the benefit of the doubt.

A frequent Central Ave shopper we spoke to yesterday offered a credible alternative explanation for Carvel’s demise on Central Ave. “In Carvel the service was slow, it was very crowded,” she said, adding, “it was very dirty, there was no natural daylight, the cakes were often stale and it was just a very unpleasant place to shop.”
In contrast, in her opinion, at Haagen Daaz nearby, “the service is quick, everything is always fresh, it’s a much bigger store with many tables, tons of sunlight, outdoor seating and always spotless.”

One person’s opinion, sure, but clearly the only explanation for Carvel’s closing was threats from the Kosher Mafia, right?

So not only was Mr. Schwach patently - and by his own admission - wrong about the timeline of events (Carvel closed around two years ago, while Mr. Schwach claims in his original story that the alleged shakedown occurred just months ago), he also admits that he could have misinterpreted the alleged incident completely. That fact, coupled with the improbability of Carvel being "forced" to close by the local "kosher mafia" while other, superior ice cream stores with similar hashgochas stay open (the kosher mafia types enjoy Haagen Dasz ice cream better than Carvel, perhaps?) takes him claim into the realm of the absurd.

So now we see for ourselves, thanks to Mr. Fertig's work, that Mr. Schwach used wild and untrue accusations as a device to malign and slander an entire community in one fell swoop. Or, as Mr. Fertig succinctly puts it,

Seeking to bolster a rather un-neighborly, anti-Orthodox agenda, he is taking aim at the issues that concern him by, figuratively, shooting arrows at a tree before drawing the circles around them.

I think Mr. Schwach's credibility is what's shot here.